


Better Days

by Zelos



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: “I just…needed a break.”<Come fly with me.>Everyone needs a day off.





	Better Days

**Author's Note:**

> I think this was supposed to be a gift fic for someone, though I can't remember whom. So if you recognize this, I'm sorry it's so late (I think I wrote the first scene...two years ago?)

Tobias flew. Muscles straining, wings flapping, he flew. Not quite at panic, but at a higher level than concern.

Of all the things they sacrificed to the war, school was the least of their concerns. What the hell did it matter how they coped when they woke up, night after night, with blood in their eyes and enemy flesh between their teeth? Marco, sneaking whiskey under his bed? Check. Rachel, cutting class after class to fly with him (Tobias only felt mildly guilty about that)? Check. Cassie, gentle Cassie, Cassie crying over a baby sparrow and ripping out an Hork-Bajir’s throat all in the same night? Check, check, and check.

Ax didn’t swear upon his honour much anymore.

Tobias has a relatively less destructive coping mechanism—he has his wings. But he didn’t have to pretend to be human, so he couldn’t judge. Just watch. And worry, and enable, and draw lines when necessary.

If it had been anyone else, it probably wouldn’t have been too much cause for concern. But Jake didn’t _do_ irresponsible—couldn’t _afford_ to, when he has the highest stake of them all. He stared down his enemy every day, sat at the same dinner table, lived in the bedroom next door. He couldn’t afford to be noticed. He couldn’t afford to draw attention, not with Saint Tom blazing the trail of Upstanding Citizen and Filial Son. Jake couldn’t afford to be _not_ normal.

And Quiet, Responsible Jake didn’t cut class—especially not when his grades were already slipping, and especially not without telling one of them first. Frankly, Visser Three himself couldn’t have kept Marco in school if Marco had known Jake would skip.

<Jake?>

Jake’s house was still standing; that was a good sign. Tobias had been half-afraid that Jake’s inexplicable absence was because of Tom, or his parents.

Two quick circles around the house confirmed that no one else was home—no sign of movement, no sounds of life. Most of the blinds and curtains were drawn, and Tobias got a couple of good glances inside; frankly, unless the Berensons had died no one was _that_ quiet in their own house.

…except for Jake’s room. Jake’s curtains were drawn shut, but the window was open. The breeze ruffled the heavy cloth and and almost muffled the sound of…crunching?

<Jake? You in there, buddy?>

The crunching stopped. A heartbeat of pause, then a soft huff, like the person was too tired to even sigh. The bedsprings creaked and there was a soft thud onto the carpet, then the curtains were roughly yanked open.

Jake blinked out at him, shadows in his face, but he pushed his window open wider. “Come on in.”

<You were expecting my house call?> Tobias asked as he landed onto Jake’s desk.

“It crossed my mind.”

Jake’s room still looked about the same, with a completely typical amount of teenage-boy clutter. Not as messy as Marco’s room (but that was a tough feat to match), nor as pristine as Rachel’s. Books piled in a couple of corners, a pair of shoes falling out of the closet, a bowl of upended Doritos on the bed (that explained the crunching). Jake hadn’t even taken down his old basketball posters, though it seemed kind of comical and wrong to think about Jake and basketball now. To think about skinned knees and untied basketball shoes on this boy with old man’s eyes.

Jake was watching him. “All good?”

<Proving a point?>

“You wouldn’t believe me otherwise.”

That wasn’t entirely true, though admittedly Jake would’ve needed to do some convincing. Still, Tobias didn’t come all the way out here for an _inspection_.

Tobias’ voice was just this side of cool. <Wouldn’t I?>

Jake was silent for a moment, looking at his bare feet. He ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry,” he finally admitted, voice worn threadbare. “I just…needed a break.”

Didn’t they all. <How’d you explain it to your parents?>

“I didn’t. Took the bus to school, ditched my stuff and flew back. Left my window open.”

<Ah.>

Jake was silent for another long moment as he carefully swept out the last of the Doritos from his sheets. When he finally spoke, there was an odd note to his voice: “It’s my mom’s birthday today.”

<Oh. Happy birthday?>

Jake actually snorted. “Yeah. We’re all going out for dinner tonight. Tom’s treat.”

Tobias’ turn to be silent, now.

Jake looked back at Tobias, and his smile was brittle. “It’s a really nice restaurant too. I guess all Mom’s pointed lectures about spending time with the family finally got through, y’know? And that goes for me too. So tonight, we all gotta be normal. One big happy family.” His smile slipped off his face, replaced by bitterness in too-old eyes. “Yeerks have it easier, with acting.”

And Tobias could understand that; hell, he was amazed Jake could keep up his charade at all, amazed that Jake had kept up his charade for years. Tobias has forgotten how to make facial expressions; he hasn’t forgotten how to _feel_. Tobias managed an hour in DeGroot’s office; he didn’t think he’d last even that long in Jake’s shoes.

Tobias wished Marco was here. He wasn’t Marco; he hasn’t known Jake since they were both in diapers. He didn’t know when to tease, when to push, when to drop the act and set Jake straight and be exactly what he needed. But he was a friend. He was that, at least.

What would Marco do? Well, for one, Marco would not let Jake sit around in his dark bedroom and wallow about a night he couldn’t change.

<Come fly with me.> It worked with Rachel, anyway. Not that Rachel ever needed much convincing.

“What?”

<Come fly with me,> Tobias repeated. <Don’t stay home in the dark like this. You don’t even have your dog for company. Where is he, anyway?>

“Vet. Mom took him.”

<Good day to cut school.>

“Yeah.”

And wasn’t this ironic—Tobias was the least-equipped to tell anyone how to stay human; fuck, Rachel cared more about his humanity than he did. But Tobias had been born human, and he knew what human was (supposed to be) like, warmth and love and affection. Tobias never had those; first he lost it to neglect and then he lost it to the hawk.

Jake here, Jake had lost it to himself. Tobias thought that might be the greater loss.

<Come on,> he prompted. <You have to leave eventually anyway. Unless you want to explain to your mom why you’re here when she comes back from the vet?>

Jake winced. “Okay, okay.” He peeled off his shirt and jeans, revealing spandex underneath. It was telling how the Animorphs basically wore their morphing outfits 24/7 now. “Where to?”

<You leave that to me, Fearless Leader. Leave that to me.>

 

They ended up at the mall. Cinnabon and McDonald’s didn’t cure all ills, but acting like a normal kid for one day, one afternoon, when so much of their lives were emphatically not normal? That helped a lot. Grease and salt took it the rest of the way.

“I feel like an idiot,” Jake muttered, picking at his Ralph Lauren sleeves. After a few stern conversations with her parents over her mounting credit card charges, Rachel had rented out a few mall lockers and stashed them with emergency clothes for everyone, so they could be returned to the lockers after use instead of being sacrificed to the dumpster. She was at the mall often enough to switch out the contents frequently, and no one would be at the mercy of Marco’s or Cassie’s fashion sense if Rachel happened to not be around. The fact that Rachel essentially got to dress the entire team—especially Marco—had kept her happy for a week.

“At least you wear clothes most of the time,” Tobias muttered back, squinting at the morass of people.

“I’ll order. Find us a seat.” Jake turned his head toward the McDonald’s. “Any requests?”

“No pickles.”

Jake tossed a grin over his shoulder. “Heathen. I’ll take yours.”

Tobias chose a booth in the corner, direct line-of-sight to the entrance. He spent a moment deliberating if he should watch the entrance or if Jake should. In the end, he decided to let Jake have the seat—it faced the crowd, and the less people who could see his expressionless face, the better. Jake squinted less anyway. Him? He could watch the sky.

The sky was overcast with patches of blue peeking through. Outside, a seagull swooped down and began picking at a garbage wrapper. A little girl, about six, threw a fry at it. She shrieked in delight as the seagull gobbled it up, and threw another. This time, the bird caught it in midair.

“Here,” Jake suddenly appeared and thumped a tray down on their table. Tobias had been so focused on the bird and the girl that he hadn’t even noticed Jake’s footsteps. Weak human ears. “Big Mac, chicken nuggets, split the fries. Coke for me, iced tea for you. Ice cream too; should we eat that first? It’ll melt?”

Tobias turned his attention to the piles of food with something like awe. It seemed so…easy, somehow. Unfairly so. Humans could just walk in and order their food in neat servings and with no effort.

Well, most humans. He never got that luxury, even back when he had been human. “That’s a lot, man.” He picked up the chocolate soft-serve. “You sure you’ll have appetite for dinner?”

Jake’s smile was wry. “Better that I don’t.”

The chocolate flavour was like fireworks going off in his mouth, sweet and creamy and cold. In these moments, Tobias understood why Ax so often lost control around food. He switched to thought-speak, lest he accidentally spray Jake with ice cream while talking. <Where did Tom get the money anyway? You said he’s treating a fancy place?>

Jake shrugged. “Didn’t ask. Maybe they gave him a second allowance.”

The very concept of allowance was foreign to Tobias, never mind one generous enough to afford fancy places. But he knew Rachel got a generous allowance on top of her credit card, both fueled by her parents’ guilt of never being around enough. Cassie and Marco’s allowances, when they had any, usually went towards Animorphs missions of some stripe. Jake’s allowance had been cut three times and was sometimes revoked entirely as his parents despaired over his falling grades. It wouldn’t surprise Tobias if Tom had gotten a raise in his allowance, even if the Yeerks didn’t give him some cash.

It made Tobias feel uneasy. He suddenly wished they’d flown around a bit longer, long enough to Tobias could’ve scrounged up some dropped change. Though doing that in front of Jake seemed awfully close to…panhandling. “Thanks for the food.”

Jake blinked around a mouthful of burger. “No prob, man.”

Tobias looked out the window again. It was easier, sometimes, to talk to walls and windows than to faces as a human. As a hawk he didn’t mind—hawks didn’t really have expressions—but as a human, it just felt…strange, even if his human face was permanently frozen in unsettling blankness.

Jake followed his gaze. “Anything interesting out there?”

The little girl was gone. Without its benefactor, the seagull was digging through the trash again. A momentary kindness, fleeting.

Tobias shook his head, weak eyes still on the bird. “No.”

They were silent for a moment, Jake slurping on his Coke.

It slipped out on impulse, like a blurted confession: “Thanks, you know.”

Jake stopped mid-slurp. He looked perplexed. “I already said it was no problem.”

“Not just…” Tobias’ ice cream was beginning to melt; he set it down guiltily, watching the brown liquid puddle onto the tray. “Before, too. The toilet. Sitting with you guys at lunch. Sleeping in your attic. Just…” His face was beginning to heat up, the words tumbling awkwardly out of his mouth.

Jake had to change a lot for the war. They all did. Jake has to be their leader, because no one else _could_ be. And along the way, Jake learned that it was easier—maybe not better, but easier—to be expedient than sincere, to do and say what was needed.

But as Tobias’ words sunk in, something shifted in Jake’s eyes, soft and surprised; for a moment, he looked like the old Jake, who cared about more than just winning.

“Oh,” he said quietly. He ducked his head a little like the praise embarrassed him. Tobias stared down at his ice cream, puddling on the tray. “It was…” Jake sounded like he wanted to say “no big deal”, then abruptly changed his mind.

“I’m glad it helped,” he said instead.

Tobias nodded. He didn’t trust his voice—spoken or thought-speak. His tongue felt three sizes too big for his head. The word _charity_ tasted vile, despite the sugar on his teeth. He felt hot and constricted, like his Rachel-chosen clothes had suddenly turned too small.

Jake waited a beat,  then nudged the box of nuggets toward him. “C’mon, eat. Even deep-fried doesn’t taste good cold.”

 

“At least it’s my mom’s birthday, not Tom’s,” Jake said.

They were walking aimlessly around the mall after stuffing themselves silly at McDonald’s. Tobias took long enough with the food that he had to demorph and remorph, which meant the gorging affected him not at all, but Jake had eaten so much that he looked a little ill. Or maybe it was the thought of the imminent dinner that made him ill. Either way, he’d wanted to walk around afterward. Despite his unease around crowds, Tobias couldn’t exactly say no.

He noticed that Jake led them toward the more open areas, with vaulted ceilings and clear view of the skylights. He was grateful for that.

“Easier to shop for?” Tobias asked.

Jake’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Tom used to be really easy to shop for. Once, I chipped in with my parents for a new pair of basketball shoes, some style he’d been begging my parents for. I don’t think he stopped grinning for two weeks straight.” The smile twisted.

Tobias didn’t reply. On one hand, Tom was one of those named victims whom they’re not sure if they could save. On the other hand, never mentioning those people at all seemed…cruel, too, like they were forgotten before they were gone. Like Elfangor, except Elfangor really had been forgotten, his departure carefully machinated by himself and someone who might as well be God.

Tobias didn’t have siblings. He sometimes wondered if he would’ve, had Elfangor stayed. It wasn’t a productive train of thought, but it was there all the same. “Did you two do stuff together?”

“Sometimes. He taught me basketball. We’d practice together in the driveway. I mean, I didn’t make the team, but without him I wouldn’t even have been able to dribble.” Jake looked past him, eyes on the sign of a Sam Goody. “He was more like Rachel than me, I guess. Not the fashion part, but…forward. Lots of friends. They’d all hang out at the food court or movie theatre after practice. Me and Marco, we liked the arcade.” His eyes were distant.

Tobias said nothing.

Jake blinked back to reality. He nodded toward the store. “Wanna go in?”

“Sure.”

They strolled into the store. The blast of air-conditioning made the feathers—hairs—on the back of his neck tingle. The speakers blasted something bouncy and cheerful that reverberated in his skull. Aqua maybe?

Jake was toying with the New Arrivals display. Tobias reached for a CD, shrink-wrapped and shiny. Foo Fighters. $13.99. He turned it over, savouring the feel of it in his fingers, and then read the words on the back. “What did you get her? Your mom, I mean.”

“Scarf. Rachel picked it out.” Jake grinned weakly. “Rachel forbade me from present-shopping by myself after I got my mom a mop one year.”

“A mop?” Tobias even managed to sound incredulous.

“Well, she said she needed a new one…”

Tobias turned to look at Jake full-on. It wasn’t quite an eye-roll, but it would do. “I guess food is easier.”

“Yeah. Probably why Tom switched to dinners.”

“What do you get on your birthdays?” He tried to keep his tone light and airy, like it didn’t matter at all. It came out flat and monotone like it always did. At least this was his normal in this morph.

“This year? Probably a tutor.” Jake shrugged. “Used to be video games if they were feeling generous, basketball stuff. Music. Movies.”

“I miss music,” Tobias said idly. He set the CD back into its place. “Movies too.” He hadn’t watched that many movies back in the day, but even the educational tapes during classes and field trips were something.

Jake blinked at him. “Oh, right, you weren’t here when…Phillip…tried out movies for the first time.” He made a face, then cracked a rueful smile. “Honestly, we should’ve expected that to go the way it did.”

“Hey, c’mon. He tries.” Jake didn’t mean anything by it. None of the others ever did. But that was how these things always went: backhanded compliments, little not-quite-intentional jabs. Irritation sharpened Tobias’ thought-speak voice, deft and precise like his human one wasn’t. <You guys wouldn’t be any better trying to be Andalites for an afternoon. I still catch you guys acting more human than birds all the time, and you’ve morphed eagles and falcons how many times?>

“You’re right. Sorry,” Jake said after a moment, and Tobias felt like he won and lost at the same time. He made his point, but at the same time he admitted he couldn’t take it like they could, busting on each other like normal kids do.

Or maybe it was just this topic. Everyone has their sore points, and this was his—more so than Ax’s. Despite being an alien, Ax could pass for human better than he could nowadays so long as he wasn’t around food. At least Ax could manage facial expressions.

Tobias wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“You could watch movies at his place though, right?” Jake suggested, once it was clear Tobias had no idea how to continue the conversation.

“Don’t have it set up,” Tobias muttered. Needles prickled on his skin. Stupid. Overreacting. Ironic, how a light joke about an alien who wasn’t even here could feel so…personal. He shook his head slightly and tried to blink back focus to his eyes. “He’s got cable though. He can quote entire episodes of _Baywatch_ back at me. I guess xenobiology is more interesting when you’re not quizzed on it.” He never knew why Ax’s xenobiology classes focused on MTV and entertainment shows rather than things like human history or anatomy. Maybe studying such trivialities of primitive species was beneath Andalite education.

“I guess that goes for school in general,” Jake said dryly, and Tobias almost managed a smile. He missed school too. The bullies and lacklustre teachers, not so much, but the books, the learning…those were nice. He liked working on Rachel’s homework with her, and he’d offered to swing by her classes and call out answers to quizzes during bad weeks. She’d never taken him up on it, but she smiled every time.

Ax knew too, because Ax’s desire to learn was even stronger than his own. But if the others got wind of it, Tobias would never hear the end of it from Marco. Maybe he could morph now, but he sure wasn’t spending his morphing clock writing essays for Marco.

Besides, no one could write the kind of bull Marco wrote, except for Marco.

“But seriously, we could have something set up if you want. A VHS player, couple of tapes…bring a few consoles. Bet he’d be good at racing games, with his…fingers.” Jake chewed his lip. “A radio?”

“Not at his place,” Tobias reminded him. “He doesn’t like our music, remember? Every time we flip past MTV he makes fun of how screechy our music is.” Tobias rolled his neck, felt the heavy joints crackle. “Can’t argue with him about the more pop-y stuff, but I liked the Beatles, back in the day. Oasis. Things like that. My uncle had tapes. I borrowed them when he was…” _drunk off his ass_ “…well, when he wasn’t using them.”

Jake gave him a strange look. “You never mentioned this.”

Tobias shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.” He has been enough of a charity case; he wasn’t going to ask. Maybe not even when offered.

Jake’s lips pressed together, like he was trying to bite back words he’d regret. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them; it filled the world.

“You should probably get going,” Tobias interrupted. He very pointedly did not look at Jake. “If you miss too many classes Chapman’ll call your parents. Can’t pick a worse time than to call than your mom’s birthday.”

“Yeah.” Jake blew out a breath that sounded a little like a sigh.

“I’ll take the clothes back to the locker.”

 

The next day, Tobias found a bag under his tree, carefully rolled up and weighed down by a rock.

His schedule wasn’t exactly regular beyond breakfast. He usually ate breakfast with Ax; Ax ran, Tobias hunted. Then they split off so Ax can have his time and Tobias had his own. Sometimes he rode thermals, sometimes he watched known Controllers. Sometimes he flew over his old house in an idle attempt to spot Dude (it never happened). He wasn’t sure if Jake had just been lucky or if he had enlisted help dropping this off.

Hawk beaks weren’t exactly dexterous. In the end, he snagged the bottom of the bag and fluttered upwards, letting gravity do the rest. Several soft thuds landed on the ground below: a walkman, some headphones, a couple of tapes. Tobias recognized Cassie’s handwriting: _Abbey Road._ _Magical Mystery Tour_. _Let It Be_.

Several hours later, he flew toward Ax’s scoop. Two hundred feet away, carried by the breeze, he could pick out the theme song of _Mario Kart._

**Author's Note:**

> Please imagine Marco ranting forever at Ax's finesse with the dreaded blue shell. :)


End file.
